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Kringen
The Norwegian Town "Kringen" A few years prior to 1983. my brother Robert James Cringan (1922-2000) of Meaford, Ontario, Canada, met a Norwegian who became excited upon hearing the name "Cringan". He knew a Norwegian village called "Kringen". Although few atlas maps of Norway show Kringen, it can be located on the map of the Scandinavian countries in "The Times Concise Atlas of the World" (1980). Kringen is in the Gudbrandsdalen some 130 air miles north of Oslo, and perhaps 150 miles northeast of the coastal city of Bergen. It is a short distance from Kringen to Otta on the north, and to Kvam to the south. This is said to be one of the most scenic areas of Norway. It is in the Peer Gynt country. of which Enrik Ibsen wrote and Edvard Grieg composed. It is near Lilliehammer, which is to be the site of the 1992 winter Olympics. Our father. John Waugh CRINGAN (1882-1949) had told Bob that he thought our ancestors were Vikings, who had emigrated from Norway to Scotland around the 10th century (or more likely, post-Viking Norwegians who had emigrated at a later date). Also, Grandfather Cringan had chosen "Kringla", a quintessentially Norwegian name, for the summer cottage that he built in Muskoka. The existence of the village of Kringen in scenic southwestern Norway may lend some credence to this possibility. Bob's Norwegian acquaintance went on to relate to him a tale of a battle alleged to have occurred at Kringen during the Middle Ages. Kringen was being attacked by a superior force along a line across the Gudbrandsdalen. The natives of Kringen formed a position high above the road through the valley, and then set up stones and boulders within a trap-like arrangement. They could not see the road through the valley below, so a lone girl took up a safe position below, from which she could see the enemy advancing. When the invaders reached the right position, she blew a horn, and the warriors from Kringen cut loose the rocks, bombarding the enemy below. Evidently Vaga, Otta, and Lom figured in the story too. Otta is just north of Kringen. Vagi (Vagamo) and 10m are in the Ottar River Valley west of Ottar. Lesje is in the Gudbrandsdalen north of Otta. Bob commented that this was probably the earliest recorded account of our family's connection with the music business! (by Alex Cringan) PRILLAR GURY - HEROINE, and JUSTLY SO! June and Alex Cringan (Revised April 16, 2004) Gudbrandsdalen, extending from Lillehammer (site of the 1988 or 1990 Winter Olympics) in the south to Dombas in the north, is among the largest, most beautiful and best known of Norway's numerous valleys. It is the main route from Oslo to Trondheim. It is Peer Gynt country - Henrik Ibsen modeled Peer Gynt on the person who once owned the Haga Farm at Vinstra. Situated near Otta in the central portion of the valley is the village of Kringen, site of an important episode during the Kalmar War in 1612. We were fortunate to travel through the Gudbrandsdalen on August 22nd, 1987, during our 2-week tour of Scandinavia. We had spent the night in the Rica Victoria Hotel in beautiful old Lillehammer. After a sumptuous breakfast and a quick visit to the colorful farmer's market in downtown Lillehammer, we boarded our tour bus along with the 34 other Americans on our tour. Bente Bentsen, our Danish tour guide from Copenhagen, and John, our Norwegian driver, conducted us up this incredibly beautiful valley through Faberg, Tretten, and Ringebu before stopping for morning coffee at Vinstra. Then, a short drive to Kringen, a short camera-stop at the Sinclair Monument there, followed by a lovely drive up the Ottadalen, toward the Fjordlands, for a lunch stop in Lom, where we saw the 13th century Lom stave church. The village of Kringen was most interesting to us. The name sounds so much like Cringan that we think that there must be some connection between the Cringans from Scotland and Kringen of Norway. Bente told us a most interesting story of the battle at Kringen as we drove through the valley where the incident took place. Norway's King Christian IV and Sweden's King Karl IX were at war. The Swedish King had engaged Scottish mercenaries to fight for him. These soldiers had landed on the west coast of Norway (probably at the head of Sognefjord, the longest fjord in Norway, to the west of Kringen), and were crossing the country, plundering and killing on the way. Prillar Gury, a teen-aged girl tending cattle and goats on their summer range in the mountains high above and to the west of the village of Kringen (Kringom), saw the soldiers coming and blew her horn, made of birch bark and willow. The villagers below correctly interpreted her message to mean that the Scottish mercenaries were coming. They armed, and engaged the Scots in a vicious battle, killing most of the soldiers. The survivors were given their choice of death, or marrying the spinster maidens of the village. The remaining soldiers chose the latter. The Scottish names of Sinclair remains in the village to this day, and there was said to have been a Ramsay in this band of mercenaries. Local costumes are said to reflect a blending of Scottish and Norwegian traditions. It is possible that Kringens from Norway could have re-emigrated to Scotland and become Cringans. The battle was real, not fictional, and by the roadside were two stone memorials to the incident. One is known as the Sinclair Memorial, featuring a carving of Prillar Gury, the heroine of this story, and giving 26 August 1612 as the date of the battle. The place-name "Kringom" is given on this monument, although the town is now known as Kringen. Bente also told us that there is reported to be a statue to Prillar on top of the mountain, near where she was when she blew her horn in 1612! The bus stopped for us by the monuments and we took pictures. Very exciting for us! First of the Toronto Cringan family to visit this town, as far as we know . A more formal description of the Sinclair incident is available from Larsen (1948). The incident occurred during the Kalmar War of 1611-1613. Christian IV of Denmark-Norway, and Karl IX of Sweden, both aggressive rulers, were at war over claims to Finnmark (the northernmost province of Norway). Both sides hired foreign mercenaries. Larsen wrote:“Christian declared war, the so-called Kalmar War (1611-1613), and attacked southern Sweden with foreign mercenaries. He also commanded Danish officers to conscript soldiers in Norway and attack Sweden. But the men deserted when they had consumed the food they had brought with them from home, for they saw no object in ravaging the farms of their Swedish neighbors. In Trondelag foreign mercenaries hired by the Swedish king were even allowed to pass through the country unmolested. A different fate met a smaller Scottish band which tried to march through Gudbrandsdal to the Swedish border. At Kringen the farmers gathered with resolute courage and killed most of the intruders with guns or by rolling down stones from the mountains. This Sinclair episode, as it has been called for the name of one of the officers, had no influence on the outcome of the war, yet it has been immortalized through song, legend, and a monument at Kringen. And justly so. The incident awakened national pride and a patriotism that looked beyond the immediate neighborhood. The decisive victories were won in the south by the king's mercenaries and the fleet. Sweden gave up any claim to Finnmark, and Denmark-Norway maintained its position both in the North and in the Baltic." Still further detail on events leading up to the Battle at Kringen is given in Brown (1957): p .122 -"On the shore of the Is Fjord in Romsdal rises a crag called Skotkleven, the Scots' Cliff. In 1612 two Scottish officers, Lt. Col. Alexander Ramsay and Capt. George Sinclair, landed near Andalsnes leading some 350 unenthusiastic mercenaries. They were bound up Romsdal and over the mountains to Sweden to support the young Swedish monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, in his war against Norway and Denmark. But Norwegian defenders killed most of the invading Scots and captured the rest.” (N.B. According to Brown's map, Is Fjord is an arm of Romsdals Fjord, southeast of the community of Mold. It is well to the north of Sogne Fjord, and appears to be about where Gudbrandsdalen would hit the coast if extended to the north. The community of Andalsnes is situated on the south side of Is Fjord. The railroad that runs through Gudbrandsdalen appears to end at Andalsnes.) REFERENCES Brown, Andrew H. 1957. Norway's fjords pit men against mountains. National Geographic 111(1):96-122. Larsen, Karen. 1948. A history of Norway. Princeton University Press, Princeton, for the American-Scandinavian Foundation. 591 pp. Normanns Kunstforlag A/C. Date? Norge I Lommeformat: Gudbrandsdalen. 34 pp. (Photograph on unnumbered p. 15 shows the Sinclair Monument; map inside back cover shows location of village of Kringen, a short distance to the south-east of Otta.) Category:Settlements on the Gudbrandsdalslågen